STEVENSON OPPOSED TO SUBURB WAGE TAX

Gubernatorial candidate Adlai Stevenson declared his opposition Monday to a plan by Mayor Harold Washington to impose a wage tax on suburbanites to ease the burden on city taxpayers.

Stevenson said that if he wins his race against Republican Gov. James Thompson, he would veto any action by the state legislature allowing the imposition of a wage tax on suburbanites who work in Chicago.

Washington said last week that he will attempt to leverage suburban legislators to support the tax in exchange for his help in the state legislature on issues of concern to them.

Washington, whose purpose in championing the wage tax is to stabilize soaring property taxes and cut utility and city sales taxes, said he will push for the legislation in the next session of the General Assembly.

''The mayor knows my feeling on the tax,'' Stevenson said during a City Hall press conference in which he received the endorsement of two Hispanic aldermen aligned with the Washington administration. He insisted that a wage tax would be counterproductive and lead to more businesses fleeing Chicago and Illinois.

''What is needed is economy in government, not more money for penitentiaries and welfare,'' Stevenson said.

In recent months, Washington has waffled on a threat to withhold his endorsement of candidates who oppose the wage tax proposal.

Stevenson expressed his opposition to the tax after Aldermen Jesus Garcia (22d) and Luis Gutierrez (26th) announced their support of the former U.S. senator as ''the best deal'' for Hispanics in the election battle against Thompson.

Garcia and Gutierrez said they will launch an education drive among Hispanices to punch 12-41-36 on the ballot. That`s what voters must do to vote the straight Democratic slate for most offices while splitting the ticket to vote for Stevenson, Michael Howlett for lieutenant governor and Jane Spirgel for secretary of state, all running on the Illinois Solidarity Party ticket.

The Solidarity Party was formed after Stevenson refused to run with two supporters of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche who won upset victories in the Democratic primary for secretary of state and lieutenant governor.

Stevenson scoffed at a Rockford newspaper poll over the weekend that showed him trailing Thompson by a whopping 56 to 30 margin.

Stevenson labelled the poll absurd, adding, ''I don`t take polls. They are misleading and unreliable. Whoever paid for that poll should demand their money back. It makes no sense.''

On Sunday, Stevenson called for a reform of the state`s horse-racing industry and charged that Thompson ordered an investigation into racing in 1981 but failed to send a report of the probe to the Illinois Racing Board until four years later.

Stevenson said he backs a racing reform package introduced by Democrats in the legislature last spring. The bills would require horses to be kept in security barns before races, authorize licensing of all racetrack personnel, allow the racing board to fingerprint parimutuel clerks and improve the board`s oversight of reports of drugged horses.